


of mercenary wildhearts

by vanitaslaughing



Series: darkest before dawn [7]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Enemies to Friends, Gen, Mercenaries, Minor Ravus Nox Fleuret/Aranea Highwind, World of Ruin, major character death/violence mostly in chapter 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2020-03-07 02:28:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18863887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanitaslaughing/pseuds/vanitaslaughing
Summary: After a few long minutes it was the pilot who spoke. “I know what you’re thinking, Aranea. Same thing as I am.”Aranea nodded. “Yep. I’ll get everyone. If he insists on paying us, we’ll take the pay. But with the days as short as they are, and all things considered… he’s likely got King Noctis and his retainers on board. Best to cast our lot in with Lucis; they’ll have need of someone who can search and rescue anyway. Get the airship ready, Rositha. I’ll get everyone else.”





	1. mercenary

**Author's Note:**

> again, as the rest of the series, in theory it can be read as a stand-alone without having to read to fui, ego eris  
> PLEASE NOTE: major spoilers for said fic, if you plan on reading tu fui!
> 
> chapter 1 goes up to roughly chapter 18-ish of it.
> 
> chapter 2 takes place post-23, is set in verse 1 up to chapter 36
> 
> chapter 3 takes place in verse 2 of tu fui, starts mid-chapter 49 and goes up to chapter 59 timeline wise.

Perhaps reprimanding the strategist they sent for being a kid when she was still a minor herself was a tad hypocritical. But she was long since beyond caring; she had made a name for herself despite her age and she was not going to let some uppity blonde, snot-faced noble get in her way. It was so easy to see he was a noble—they all looked the same. Picture-perfect and not a single blemish on their flawless faces. They thought the war was all about titles and honours and what not.

Only when he said his name did the wind knock out of her.

It wasn’t a secret in the empire that the fallen family Tummelt had lost everything. The Muspell region was perhaps one of the most history-rich regions and the Tummelt family had ever been their proudest achievement until recently. It all ended with the head of the family bringing shame to his name by failing to fulfill his mission and living to tell the tale. He returned home with his honour broken beyond repair and unless he worked hard to restore it he would have spent his entire remaining life desperately struggling to reclaim his family’s lost honour. So he chose the noose. Chose it so poorly in fact that the first person to find him had been his own damned son.

Only when he said that his name was Tummelt did Aranea notice that this kid, much like her, had the blank look of a traumatised kid about him. Maybe he was trying to give her a cold and stern glare, but all she could see in those blue eyes was something completely and utterly devoid of life. Of joy. A kid, like her, on the front lines after a laboratory breakout.

She clapped a hand on his shoulder.

“Alright. You got yourself a deal, Tummelt.”

A fucking kid. He was a fucking kid, and she could see the relief in his eyes that the army wouldn’t be sent away to face the wrath of their superiors.

Not that she was much better.

It was her two best friends other than Biggs and Wedge who eventually came to get her once the plans were made with the Tummelt kid, and once more she was wildly aware that she and he were children leading a group of soldiers into battle

* * *

She was a commoner, born in a region that had long since discarded its name. It was the first conquest of the then small Niflheim region, barely more than some mountain villages scattered across the almost scenic ranges of the mountains that made up most of Niflheim. Most of the people there weren’t fighters—they were mostly farmers of some sort. Cattle and crops that survived in the cold heights, sturdy creatures and plants and people that withstood any sort of blizzard and simply rebuilt without a complaint every time they were knocked down. The people of Gjöll were called the resilient mountain dwellers, something that survived even the region’s name vanishing as it became part of Niflheim. Aranea was a proud citizen of Niflheim before she was a mountain dweller of Gjöll, but a small part of her was still proud to have been born on these sparse mountains rather than in the vast city of Gralea she grew up in.

She had decided on her path because she wanted to fight for her country, but not in the way that the army did. She had no love for war and conquests—mercenaries still took care of the lands surrounding the capital. Getting taken in as trainee as young as she had been meant that she had seen a lot of the country and the continent long before she became Commodore.

At nearly eighteen, she realised that a storm was brewing in her beloved home country. It had always felt kind of odd, but as she stood in the hangar of Zegnautus Keep because once more they had been hired by the government to take care of some Daemons she realised that something was most definitely wrong here. The atmosphere was charged, coiled somehow and ready to strike. The Brigadier Officer she reported to seemed kind of absent-minded as he handed her the pay for her unit, then turned around and went over some more paper. Then the man, a short guy with brown hair, stopped and turned back around to look at her.

“Highwind and her mercenaries, right?”

“Yes.” She had just told him that, but she wasn’t feeling particularly standoffish today. It wasn’t a good idea with the army people anyway.

Still, he frowned rather deeply and looked at his stack of papers in his hands once more. “You accept payment from everyone as long as the mission is not against Niflheim itself, don’t you.”

It wasn’t a question. She still confirmed it because she knew better than to start a fight with some government bozo. She just wanted to get back to her crew and into a bed.

The guy handed her a sheet of paper. “Considering current going rates, this ought to buy your services for a year. Please give us an answer within a fortnight.”

The sheer _numbers_ on this thing sent Aranea straight into the Beyond. This was far more than strictly necessary—this would buy her crew for roughly four and a half years rather than merely one. Not that she was going to tell the guy that. She thanked him quietly and returned to the crew. All of them stared at the paper once she presented it to them with wide eyes.

If nothing else, they were her family. Her closest friends. Men and women who she could trust, whose opinion she always got before they accepted a job. Perhaps that made her crew unusual, but after having seen just how easily a life was lost in the field she had taken over and made certain that everyone got the voice they deserved. All of them were standing around the table, with Biggs all but leaning over her shoulder and being completely rendered speechless.

“And they said… a year? That’s the going rate they think gets us for a year?”

“They’re insane.”

“I mean, it’s the government. Course they’re mad.”

“Still, that’ll see us set for _years_ , don’tcha think we should accept that?”

“Aren’t we selling our souls then? If they buy us for a year, we’ll likely be involved in the war….”

“But the money!”

Both sides of the argument that evolved from this had a point. They were mercenaries, yes, but none of them were particularly fond of the war. All of them were proud to be Niff even despite all of that, all of them wanted to do their part. Maybe not as soldiers in the field, yes, but there was a reason why Aranea’s crew had gotten famous after her first mission as leader saw them exterminating an entire Daemon breeding ground as if it was a minor nuisance. Aranea attributed it to the trust between the group, the group attributed it to Aranea’s fast thinking and skill with a lance.

Hearing them argue now was breaking her idiotic heart, and eventually she slammed her hands on the table.

“Enough bickering! Everyone’s got a point. We have two weeks to sleep on this before the deadline. In the event that we do agree, I’m fairly certain we can demand we just get sent on Daemon-related missions because that’s what we do.”

They did agree, in the end. Biggs and Wedge, sons of soldiers, proved to be the biggest opposition, but they did agree with the majority.

“Doesn’t mean we have to like it, Lady A,” Wedge muttered after the meeting was adjourned.

She put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it gently. “If things get bad, we pull out of the deal. Screw the empire. Might as well go ‘n do search and rescue across the planet in case we gotta bust.”

Unfortunately, but a year later she realised why all mercenary groups across the continent were hired by the government. Her group had been made part of the Airborne Brigade by that point, perhaps not the pride of the empire but something that quickly accumulated a certain level of infamy even over in Lucis. A year later, she realised that they had been hired so no one else could. No mercenaries would be flying to Tenebrae to help them there. No mercenaries would be bought with Lucian money to ensure that in the event of an attack they all go out.

A grand conquest by any other name; though the government spun the tale that rebels attacked and unfortunately killed the Oracle in that attack. But her children were safe, praise be to the empire. Aranea stared at those images of the Fleuret siblings and once again anger brewed up within her like a storm. The girl looked defiant; she was glaring despite the soot on her face. Per pretty white dress had dark spots on it that could only be blood. And her brother’s eyes were the same kind of vacant that Aranea saw in Tummelt’ eyes last year. There were specks of dried blood on his face that didn’t look as if they were his own; his arm was injured, yes, but the slice was low enough that it wouldn’t have splattered on his own face. The princess was a kid just as Tummelt had been; the prince she knew was still a minor despite him looking like he should be older than her.

Now nearly nineteen, Aranea Highwind found herself employed by the government. She almost begged the people to not send her group on anything but rescue detail—or Daemon detail.

* * *

It was a curse, she reckoned. Daemons, nothing but Daemons.

Besithia had all but jumped at the chance of having a personal group of extractors, especially since Lucis had been pushed all the way back to Insomnia by now. Though not an official conquest, the outer regions of the country had long since adopted the Niff Gil rather than the Lucian Yen. If they really considered themselves conquered, then the kids would be learning Niff in school, Aranea realised with a dim jolt of horror. They all spoke Common, of course—though most children were still learning it. She knew roughly enough Lucian to understand most of the insults thrown her way when she was closer to Insomnia, but right now the kids were thanking her. They were calling her impressive, nice, and really, really strong.

Truth be told, she had been sent to extract that thing. But since it had cornered these children, she had decided to take the cut to her salary and killed the Daemon rather than let it eat some innocent kids. Besithia might consider Lucians nothing but idiots who could be killed at the drop of a needle, but Aranea still saw them as people. Anything else would make her no better than the Daemons she hunted.

When she reached the settlement, the father of these three ran forward with a strangled cry and gathered them in his arms. The man was sobbing, but Aranea was having a staring contest with the kids’ mother. Lucians were standoffish and proud. Too much of her time was wasted listening to fellow higher-ups in the army—Besithia called it a curse, Ulldor called them savages who didn’t know when they were beat.

This woman definitely looked the standoffish sort. Short, stocky, wild and curly brown hair that fell into her face, covered her grey eyes. She probably was one of the hunters, a civilian outfit that often trained with Crownsguard who left the Crown City. Heh, Aranea thought, maybe she’d be the next Cor Leonis. She definitely had the looks of it, and the few people who survived an encounter with that man said that he often stared at them for ages before disengaging, as if to see whether they were going to keep attacking or not.

But after a few more moments of silence, the woman’s expression softened.

“Thank you,” she said, her Common definitely accented. Probably someone who had moved out from the Crown City to live in this little village in Cleigne.

“Not a problem,” Aranea replied.

She left it at that, declined any sort of payment that the woman offered once she realised that she was talking to the infamous 25-year-old Aranea Highwind of the Niflheim Empire. Said that she was just glad the kids were okay, and left for her airship again. The rest of the group all quietly welcomed her back on board once she bounced back on.

Oh, Besithia was going to have their heads on pikes, the pilot-in-training squeaked from her seat after a while, but Aranea waved a hand.

“Screw that old shithead. I’ll deal with him. If he decides to cut our pay, I’ll just give everyone who’s sending money to their families my share of the cut, and that’s that. We’ve managed that guy’s wrath before, we can manage it again.”

Daemons.

She hated them.

She wasn’t the only one, as she learned on the next mission. As a punishment she and her mercenaries were to include the most promising candidates for a new Brigadier Officer position on an extermination mission. Most of them were scowling blonde Niffs, all of them high-born and making certain that the Niff rabble that was the Airborne Brigade under Aranea Highwind knew that they were only commoners. The one who stood out the most was the utterly and devastatingly silent Ravus Nox Fleuret.

It was no secret that Chancellor Izunia had taken a liking to that young man. He was efficient—bitter and hateful tongues yapped that it was all thanks to the blood of this ancient and magical family running through his veins, but as she stared at him for a moment to size him up, she realised that this was a man driven by nothing but the urge to get revenge. His efficiency came from a deep desire to protect his sister and from the all-consuming rage that simmered in his pale eyes. No wonder Izunia had taken a liking to that man.

Aranea sighed and shook her head.

Back in Gralea her parents had always talked about how the empire wanted the best for the planet.

When had the best gone from peace and quiet even through conquest to making warriors out of monsters they created with their blind violence?

* * *

She hated this guy. She hated him so much it made her entire body shake with barely concealed rage once she was behind a closed door—but Aranea Highwind was known for two things: cold professionalism, and unrivalled aerial combat skill. Her group had been sent here as a stopover before their next venture into idiotic Solheim ruins at the behest of Besithia. The fact that the chancellor was sneaking around the site a lot only added to the stress for everyone; the man was creeping them out and there was no denying that some of the more sinister dealings lately were all thanks to him and his sheer influence on the military side of Niflheim. After all, he had been the one to guide the traumatised boy from the picture to becoming the High Commander who relentlessly pursued the runaway prince and his runaway sister with a franticness that betrayed that he was scared senseless. He was a freak to her; who _chased_ their siblings across a country? Yet on the other hand she understood. There were much more unsavoury characters around that could put their grimy hands on Oracle Lunafreya.

That girl. No, that woman. Aranea adored her. She admired her. Through all the agony and loss she had risen to be strong enough to stand beside her captors without shaking slightly.

Aranea meanwhile shook like mad. This guy had _fucking_ killed a civilian. _A civilian._ There had been no reason to do any of this, doubly so out in public _and in front of the guy’s grandson._ Yet another traumatised child to add to the list, and Biggs and Wedge had been the ones to gently persuade her to _leave now._

She would have torn Ulldor’s throat out with her bare hands if they hadn’t stopped her. Dragging her fingers down her face, she nearly missed the commotion that started outside. It might have been nearly a month since that day, but as she watched something go up in flames she knew that unholy retribution was all the were going to reap. The empire sowed discord and anger, and now they were reaping their rewards. This wasn’t the country she had started serving so young, with pride swelling in her little chest as she received a lance and permission to train as dragoon. This wasn’t the country her mentor had served, this wasn’t the country that her new family, her mercenaries, had sworn to die for when they were made an official regiment of the army. Her Airborne Brigade was her pride and joy, and it was infamously hard to get into it—because despite everything, despite them being army officials now, they were still mercenaries at heart and mercenaries stuck together.

She grunted angrily and snatched her spear off the wall in the office. Wherever Ulldor was, she decided that it was time to tell him to bite her ass and say that Besithia outranked him and therefore her mission to get to Steyliff Grove and extract Daemons was more important than all this petty bullshit.

Of course it never was that easy. Just a moment later she received a call from an obviously angry and flustered Ulldor. Demanded that the mercenaries get him out of there since he had narrowly avoided being taken captive by savages thinking they were going to break out from imperial rule. Some snotty young man with a posh accent and glasses.

Aranea had seen that image enough times to know that this could only mean that the runaway prince the High Commander chased like a man possessed was currently the one busting up their base.

Ulldor offered a hilariously small pay for _killing_ these kids.

Aranea decided to humour that request. The pay meant that she would be taking them on for roughly ten minutes. If they lived that long then she might as well see where they could be going afterwards. So she took off. Leapt into battle.

Though the glasses kid seemed to recognise her after five minutes and started giving clearer orders on how to take care of a dragoon, the prince himself still followed her up into the air, his sword clutched like a lifeline as he somehow managed to parry her. It never got anywhere but Aranea enjoyed the dance.

These kids showed promise. Though, again, she knew that one of these four at least was just as hideously traumatised as most other people she dealt with somehow. Yet it was the prince who offered the most resistance even through his dazed look and the tall one and the glasses one immediately moving in front of him. She had to admire that. Despite all the horrible bullshit Prince Noctis had gone through in his life he still leapt back to his feet from that crash-landing, ignored the pain that likely shot through his back and tried shoving the other two out of the way to get back to her. Aranea only jumped out of the way, declared that playtime was over. After all, she hadn’t been paid for more, and this was theoretically overtime. _Unpaid_ overtime. And a match that saw her one against four Lucians who were clearly trained. Hells, that prince on his own—no, no, that _king—_ would have been a serious challenge if he brushed off getting knocked about that easily.

Four of them at the same time?

She wasn’t as mad as the people she worked for.

“Let’s play again sometime, pretty boy!”

* * *

“Commodore, there’s… there’s a call incoming.”

She was really only in the cockpit because the pilot had asked for her opinion on a route out of this place and to Tenebrae. They had left mere hours before and cut all contact to every airship that was accounted for—whoever was calling right now was most definitely not someone from Zegnautus Keep. There had been a bunch of people running away from escaped Daemons below. Having had just effectively resigned and gone rogue, Aranea and her mercenaries had landed to save these people. A small break to recover; the pilot had wondered if maybe there were more people running away now that the Daemons were on the move.

Aranea leaned over and looked at who the call was from. She saw why the pilot, normally a pretty peppy girl with a loud voice no matter what had sounded so strangely subdued.

Command.

Zegnautus Keep lay all but dead and quiet, had been like that for over a week. The city itself also lay quiet, with the people refusing to come out and instead staring at their floating fortress wondering what the hell was going on. They were reaping the rewards; the Oracle had died because of their folly and now even the atheist nation of Niflheim was wondering if it was divine retribution that made getting to and getting out of Zegnautus Keep impossible. The other possible airships labelled command were few in number.

Ulldor was dead and his airship trashed.

Besithia had not left his labs in _months._

Izunia… truth be told, she had cut Izunia out of line ages ago, while slightly drunk, with the whole group cheering as Biggs and Wedge installed the number blocker.

Fleuret….

She and the pilot exchanged a look. They had likely both thought of the High Commander in the same moment; a man who had lost _everything_ in the rising waves of Altissia. Not that he had had much to begin with, but after Steyliff they had talked about it and agreed that the man was likely just trying to keep his sister from doing something dangerous. Whether he played a part in her demise or not didn’t really matter—out of all people, he likely felt that loss the worst. And even Aranea herself had taken an hour to herself to cry. The good ones all died so horribly young and in such horrible ways.

“What should we do?” The pilot’s voice was quiet. Aranea put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it gently.

She then reached forward to accept the call.

Silence.

Then she heard a crackle and a deep sigh. “Highwind’s mercenaries?”

That was the High Commander. His voice sounded strained, strangely quiet as if he were trying not to upset someone. The pilot was looking at her as Aranea took a deep breath.

“Yeah.” It was rather silly, but she made certain she sounded as neutral as possible. “High Commander?”

A long, long pause. It sounded as if he were messing with the altitude—something that a co-pilot normally took care of. Aranea realised with a jolt of horror that he was likely flying an entire airship by himself.

“Mind meeting me in Tenebrae, at the train station outside Fenestala Manor? I have… needs of your services. I can pay whatever you want, I’ll quadruple what the government paid you if I have to, but I… I need help. _Your_ help.”

Aranea closed her eyes. “Deserting, High Commander?”

A snort. “And you haven’t?”

Damn, that guy remained eerily good at figuring things out. “Okay. Fenestala Manor, Tenebrae. Train station. We’ll be there.”

“Good. Thank you. I’ll tell you the rest there.”

The line shut down, leaving her and the pilot looking at each other in utter silence. After a few long minutes it was the pilot who spoke. “I know what you’re thinking, Aranea. Same thing as I am.”

Aranea nodded. “Yep. I’ll get everyone. If he insists on paying us, we’ll take the pay. But with the days as short as they are, and all things considered… he’s likely got King Noctis and his retainers on board. Best to cast our lot in with Lucis; they’ll have need of someone who can search and rescue anyway. Get the airship ready, Rositha. I’ll get everyone else.”

* * *

She hadn’t really considered it much of a gesture. But the Lucians took it as a sign of her and her people genuinely being some of the good ones.

Honestly, all things considered, Loqi Tummelt’s move of disarming himself and getting on his knees not to beg for forgiveness he did not deserve but to promise that he would not betray King Noctis after he put his trust in them showed that he had done the most growing out of all of them. She actually went and clapped a hand against her fellow Niff’s shoulder and then told him that she was proud of him. For a split moment she felt as if she were seventeen again and staring at this teenager barely into puberty who so very desperately wanted to regain this concept of honour Aranea never really understood. Except that this time they were hardened soldiers, lived in perpetual darkness, and Loqi shook his head slightly rather than try and glare up at her.

It was a tad macabre but apparently the fire had burnt away the wall he had built around himself, and being taken in despite all the things he had done had finally cracked this soldier wide open. Other than her and Ravus he was the highest-ranked Niflheim Army official around—and unlike her, a commoner, and Ravus, a foreign prince, he was actual Niff nobility. Niff nobility that might have a claim to that vacant throne now that Emperor Aldercapt had died and had taken his bloodline with him. The Tummelt family might not have been involved with the founding of Niflheim in that crater that day, but they had enough history back in Muspell that people would likely listen to him if he were to claim that crown.

Which Loqi knew.

Which Loqi would refuse.

Still, Aranea offered him a hand—and he took it. Every Niff might as well have been a part of her mercenaries at this point; every single of her people slowly befriending the civilians and the soldiers that Iris Amicitia had saved that day.

“Thanks,” he muttered. Before the war was won he would have slapped her hand away with that simmering fury in his eyes had had defined him once he was past the shock of warfare. Aranea had to admit she liked it better that way.

“No need to thank me. You might as well be part of my mercs, given you’re a Niff in Lucis who admitted his wrongs and all that. And I look after my team.”

He cracked an almost shy smile at her after that.

* * *

Had someone asked her where she would see herself when she was approaching 32, her kid self would have proudly proclaimed that she would be the best dragoon all over Eos. Her teenage self would have said that she’d still be with her mercenaries doing whatever they thought was right as long as the pay was good. Her mid-twenties self would have mumbled something about probably still gathering Daemons for Besithia and hating these things.

She definitely would have never guessed that she’d be drinking in a small apartment in Lestallum with the former High Commander who took the mantle of Oracle from his sister after said sister broke some of the fundamental rules of magic. Hells, it still went over her head. Doubly so now that she was more than slightly drunk and sitting upside down on her couch.

They’d laughed. They’d cried. Mostly they had cried, now that her brain was able to parse the situation for a little more than all those conflicting emotions did not make a lick of sense.

The two of them had been the bearers of bad news. Had been the ones to recover the body on top of that. The way King Noctis fell apart after they found that man dead and for a terrifying while all evidence pointed to his missing boyfriend being the murderer had not been satisfying in any way. Emperor Aldercapt had always said that victory would taste sweet.

Truth be told, Aranea only wanted to throw up. Loqi had said the exact same thing—he’d managed it. He’d outlived the man whose choice to let his father go had ruined Loqi’s entire life. But now that he was dead, Loqi said there was no satisfaction in any of these hollow supposed victories. Cor Leonis’ death didn’t somehow undo his father’s suicide, didn’t undo all the pain and suffering his mother went through in the last years of her life as she got sicker and sicker—didn’t restore the honour he swore he would regain. He then sulked off, likely to bang the blunt edge of his weapon against his Magitek Engine. It could be therapeutical, and definitely was a better choice than drinking.

Ravus dragged his actual flesh hand down his face. It was a funny motion—Aranea once more realised that he might have been ambidextrous much like her, but before the Ring of the Lucii had claimed his arm he had always preferred using the left one. “This fucking sucks,” he slurred, and Aranea giggled.

“Look at _you,_ Mister High Commander, Sir. Bad words. And that in company of a _girl._ ”

He pointed his metal fingers at her, his pale face flushed. “If anything I would have to treat my senior with respect, but I’m your superior!”

They both broke into howling laughter that slowly but steadily turned into more sobbing.

This _really_ wasn’t the right way to cope with this. But it was nice for the time being—besides, there were so many other things that weighed down on them that this was a long overdue thing.

It was an unexpected friendship they had forged over the burning ruins of their dreams and empire, but Aranea enjoyed it. If all Niffs were part of her family of mercenaries by now, Ravus was perhaps the one she ought to call the honorary member. He was, after all, the Oracle and the Crown Prince of Tenebrae.

Damn. When had she gone from mere commoner and mercenary to someone who rubbed shoulders with nobility and even royalty like that?

“This fucking sucks,” she also said and slid off the couch. “But hey. Made us allies. Can’t complain about that.”

That certainly made Ravus pause. The way he furrowed his eyebrows almost looked cute—she had only known him as scowling bastard back in Gralea. But ever since she had agreed to a payment that all of her mercenaries said they wouldn’t necessarily need if all he was going to ask was simply help to protect the people from the Daemons she had started to learn a lot about him. He was an okay enough guy. Definitely not someone from the mountains of Gjöll; he was almost embarrassingly fragile-looking. The hard nature of his was merely a defence against the fact that even 13 years later he was raw and bleeding on the inside and the universe saw fit to take everything from him.

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. Shit sucks, but we’re… allies now. That’s good.”

She giggled again, fully aware that the funeral pyre was still catching up to them. There were tears running down her face as she lay there on the ground.

“Hey, Ravus?”

“Mhm?”

“Let’s see the dawn together.”

He furrowed his brows again for a split moment, then closed his eyes. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s. And afterwards, just… just let me join your mercenaries, okay?”

“Deal.”


	2. wild

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this takes place AFTER chapter 23 "You and your former ally." of tu fui, ego eris and leads up to chapter 36 "The hearts you broke."
> 
> major character death applies here because it's verse 1 of tu fui.

“And get that fucking limp checked out, asshole!”

Yelling didn’t help. Hells, she felt horrible as Loqi limped off towards the part of the city where he knew people who could heal wounds were likely gathered.

But after everything, she was rather surprised that she hadn’t broken down sobbing yet. There had been so many deaths in her group lately that she’d been afraid that she was going completely numb to them. Hells, she’d seen countless men and women with their throats torn out before—but something about Ravus had completely thrown her off-kilter. Maybe it was because they had spent so much time together that she wasn’t entirely sure if she considered him a friend as good as Biggs and Wedge by this point, or because she had started harbouring a crush on him that was even more embarrassing than the one she had had on his sister.

Even just _thinking_ about Biggs and Wedge in the same state nearly made her throw up, and she all but stormed off into the Greenhouse District to catch a literal fresh breath of air.

From the moment she had become a dragoon she had been taught that her comrades and even herself might die on a battlefield one day. Even as a kid—how fucked up was that?—she had taken pride in it. Dragoons were meant to all but fly, and Aranea had been granted the gift of actually flying with an airship on top of her jumping skills. She was the dragoon who soared above all.

All that blood haunted her. His _expression_ haunted her. If the chancellor hadn’t been there she was rather certain she would have pounced on Noctis’ little ex-boyfriend and torn him into pieces.

There’d be no dawn or joining mercenary groups now. There would only be a pyre that consumed him. In a moment of clarity she had looked into how such things were handled in Tenebrae proper—they had often talked about it, once or twice he had bemoaned the fact that he hadn’t been able to send his mother and sister off properly in the way Tenebraens did.

She sat down in front of the Sylleblossoms almost automatically.

Gods, she wanted to fucking cry. But she couldn’t.

Her family still needed her, after all. Lestallum at large still needed her. She couldn’t just… shut down like this.

Then again, Ravus had always said that sometimes it was necessary. He himself had said that perhaps immediately throwing himself into everything and then demanding Noctis get himself together had been a wrong move, but after Cor had died he had let the king grieve. And the king returned this time, did not shut down completely.

Honestly she just desperately wanted someone to talk to her without looking at her like the world had ended. She just wanted someone to not tread on eggshells around her; losing a friend was hard but being looked at with so much pity was even worse.

“If only you damn flowers could talk.”

They couldn’t, and someone would find her here before long. Maybe it would be one of her mercenaries—in that case, she’d get back up and walk with her head held as high as a proud Niff could. They deserved her to be strong even if she felt extremely faint right now.

And if it was a Lucian, maybe she would finally be able to cry. Properly.

* * *

It got easier after a while, and that was what terrified her. Another funeral pyre, another handful people she had known. Sometimes in passing. Sometimes they were from her group. By now the borders between the people had all melded together in such ways that she wasn’t entirely sure any longer how to feel. She was still a Niff. She was still proudly a Niff, perhaps more than ever now that their last supposed leader had died a lousy year ago. But somehow she found herself standing between Gladiolus Amicitia and Loqi Tummelt this time, with Loqi next to Cindy Aurum who in turn stood next to an Accordan and a Tenebraen woman. It was odd. It was so very, very odd.

But it felt right.

It just happened that at times like these she almost desperately wished she could raise the dead.

Much like she had years ago, it was Loqi this time who offered her a hand. It was a small gesture. They were allies, yes, fellow countrymen. They went on missions together whenever he wasn’t with Prompto and Cindy, and he listened to her just as much as Ravus had had back when he had been alive. Listened to her sitting beside Biggs and Wedge and her mercenaries as if he belonged to them fully rather than just being all but unofficially having joined them as a fellow Niff. But this small gesture meant the world to her.

She couldn’t afford breaking down. After all, next to Gladiolus and Monica she was the next-highest in the chain of command that began and Noctis and ended at every single Glaive trainee. She took his hand.

* * *

She really, really, _really_ hated fire by this point.

Unable to bear witness to this, she whirled around and stalked off. She needed to talk to the only person who had witnessed this death, and by the fucking gods that she did not believe in, Aranea wanted answers. Cindy Aurum was yet another person who had lost too much as a child. Seeing that poor woman sit there sobbing as Aranea landed the airship and her co-pilot hopped out and finding her covered in fucking blood had been too much to begin with. That damn chipper bastard friend of the king who looked too much like Besithia, bleeding and unconscious. The handful mercenaries with her immediately bounced out and started applying pressure to that wound.

Aranea meanwhile already knew that it was too late for her fellow Niff. But seeing him just as unharmed as possible made her want to screech her anger to the heavens. A broken neck. What kind of sick joke did the universe spin here; seeing Loqi Tummelt killed that way? And it was so blatantly obvious that someone had been choking him before they killed him at least mercifully quickly.

Aranea wanted to know who she could blame for this, though she already had a feeling that she knew the answer. So many people had been killed by that thrice-damned bastard who had gone fucking nuts over the past three years. Gladiolus claimed that perhaps he was just acting as a Daemon already ought to. Iris claimed he was just being controlled by Chancellor Izunia. The king said nothing about his man he clearly still very desperately loved.

Hells, she felt like the worst person in existence as she burst into that room and poor Cindy choked on her tears. Normally Aranea didn’t force answers out of anyone, but this was one of the non-mercenary Niffs that she had known the longest. The person who had done more for Lestallum than most people believed because he had swallowed his pride and anger and desperation and made an oath to a crown he didn’t like and actively helped destroy.

The woman was bawling by the time she chocked out the name Aranea had known all along as Loqi’s murderer. Same name as the person who had torn Ravus into shreds. Same person who had killed so many of her countrymen and fellow mercenaries.

She wanted _answers._ She so very, very desperately wanted answers. King Noctis looked uncomfortable in her apartment as she asked him whether he believed what Iris and Gladiolus did or if there was something _else._

He quietly said that there was likely something else. That Ignis was likely too far down a path that he couldn’t return from.

Aranea Highwind was a legendary mercenary. She had been an obstacle, a tactical wildcard—something that carried over until now. If the tactician, the royal advisor, decided that she was something that needed to be removed then surely there were more efficient ways than driving her mad with grief. She slammed her hands on Biggs and Wedge’s shoulders, tears running down her face as she _begged_ them not to leave town for the time being. So many had already died, she wouldn’t be able to live with having to bury her two oldest friends who were _finally_ past the dumbass phase of not being able to admit they were very much in love with each other. They looked at her when she said that everyone she ever cared about died before she had been able to say it out loud, and the two of them only quietly wrapped their arms around her.

“Damn, why didn’t you say so earlier?”

“C’mon, we’re friends. You can tell us, okay?”

She bawled. She fucking bawled this time, sobbed until her throat was raw and her eyes stung as if someone had tried to tear them out. But she felt better now. More determined.

Insomnia. That was where she needed to go.

She needed to get to Ignis Scientia and to ask him if he merely wanted to drive her absolutely batshit insane or if he merely killed without reason by this point. And she was going to. If he killed her, fine. That would be it. But she grabbed her lance that day and marched out. They were trying to get civilians out of the city. Surely the king rat would send the sick rat after them.

She was going to find him. And she was going to _beat_ an answer out of him if she had to.


	3. heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and once more,  
> this time it's set in verse 2; starting in chapter 49 "The unexpected way to regain your balance." and leads up until 59, "Where Flowers Blend Into The Sky"

She tapped her fingers on the control console. Two days, no advisor in sight.

“Y’know,” she eventually sighed and her companion turned his head to her from where he sat on the floor in the brightly lit airship, “I have a feeling all of this shit’s gonna go out of wack eventually.”

Loqi put the anti-Daemon flare launcher he had been polishing on the floor next to him and let himself fall backwards with a dramatic sigh. “Eventually? We’re already dealing with all this magic nonsense. This is gonna get worse the moment he returns, mark my words.”

“Aren’t you an optimistic sunshine today, Sir Noble.”

“Blonde hair doesn’t mean the sun shines out my ass and I’m a never-ending optimist like some other people in Lestallum. I’m telling you, Commodore, we’re in for trouble. Magical trouble.”

She snorted. “What, a Code M-794G?”

“Worse. M-794GT.”

“Oof.”

He let out a laugh as he lay there on the floor, and then heaved himself up again. “Well, okay, maybe not that dire. But correct me if I’m wrong and just being overly paranoid, but something can’t be right here.”

“Nah, I feel it too. It’s like we’re being watched, but there’s nothing and no one around.”

“Exactly.” He grabbed the launcher again and started fiddling with the firing mechanism instead. “And I have the bad feeling that the moment Scientia returns from his little excursion, we’re gonna be in trouble.”

They both were quiet for a moment.

Then both her and Loqi broke into howling laughter.

Niffs didn’t deal with magic. They only tried to vanquish it, conquer it like they conquered nations. But Lucian magic remained out of their reach forever, and even the Crystal they eventually nabbed did not suddenly throw up its secrets right into their laps. She didn’t understand. She didn’t want to understand.

Yet she still offered helping everyone who came up to her. First Ravus. Then Iris. Now Ignis.

This definitely was not what she had signed up for when she decided she wanted to be a dragoon, but it felt right. As if everything belonged that way. Maybe her not-knowledge about magic helped the people eventually. All she really knew was that people burnt more energy when they used magic. She was the sole reason why Ravus still ate properly rather than sustaining himself almost entirely on barely sweetened water and a half-hearted nibble on a long dry piece of bread. So maybe not a mage in the making, but definitely a good instructor.

* * *

He was resilient. Persistent.

Definitely not good with a weapon like that, but heavens he tried. He got up and grabbed the training weapon again no matter how many times she knocked him down, every time demanded another round, that he was going to get it by now.

Ravus honestly reminded her of herself back when she had first held a weapon, and it was endearing. Especially since his sister had been really damned good with that selfsame trident that currently sat in his room and gently collected dust because he wasn’t entirely certain if he wanted to use it or keep it as a memento. But as it turned out the Fleurets who would never be Oracle were generally not trained in the same weapon type that the Oracles would eventually use. He had chosen light swords that were meant for fencing because it meant that he could accompany Lunafreya’s heavy swings better and keep things distracted while she dispatched them. In turn Ravus with a weapon that he wasn’t used to was slow and almost clumsy.

Still, he got up.

Another round.

Aranea bounced over his head and thwacked her training weapon into his back. He breathed out and let his weapon fall. He was shaking, likely from exhaustion.

“That’d be my lung pierced.” He didn’t turn around as she got closer and put the weapon away. She put her hands on his shoulders and forced him to sit down. “And if you had shoved me to the ground, I would be drowning in my own blood.”

“Yep, you would be. Can you be less macabre and please take a break, Ravus?”

He didn’t say anything else to that and instead started breathing in and out quietly but steadily. She knew when he was exhausted by now. He knew it as well when she reached her limits, though hers were usually the nerves rather than anything else.

It was… comfortable. The same comfortable that being with Biggs and Wedge was, though them dancing around the elephant in the room was getting annoying. One of these days she was going to set them up so they’d confess their feelings for one another. Though, she reckoned, that would let people see that other elephant in the room. Or rather, people would stop making jokes about her and Ravus and actually look into it. Which she didn’t want. She just really wanted to keep that friend, feelings or no. Feelings were so damned bothersome. It made people do idiotic things. That guy who jumped between her and an attack she could have easily parried, and the moron died for it. Lunafreya at the Altar of the Tidemother. King Regis. _Ignis._

Instead she sat down next to Ravus and let out a huff. “You’re getting better, though. It’s obvious this ain’t your forte, but the fact that you haven’t given up yet’s admirable.”

He let out a small laugh. “Giving up now while I’m ahead would be spitting on my sister’s corpse. Either this nonsense kills me, or I manage this nonsense.”

Aranea frowned. “Wrong attitude. That just gets you killed out in the field.”

He slumped forwards a little. “I know.”

They didn’t say anything more until he caught his breath enough to stand up and demand another round. Gods. Aranea would have to confront her emotions and confess them sooner or later before it got too weird. Before it got to a point where it got in the way of their friendship.

She didn’t want to end up the same way Ignis and Noctis had. That cold distance between them despite one throwing longing looks at the other when they weren’t looking was just depressing to watch.

But thinking about ending up like Iris and Maris made her shudder. All this public affection was kind of cute but the moment he imagined herself being like that made her dread being alive.

* * *

“I love you...r dedication to keeping your fellow mercenaries safe.”

* * *

It didn’t strike her until much later that thinking about this sort of thing when there was perpetual darkness was kind of odd. Most people who arrived in Lestallum were ready to fight for their lives out there in the dark, many said they would willingly lay down their lives. How on earth had her mind disengaged from keeping everything and everyone safe to thinking about this sort of thing? How on earth was she comfortable enough to even consider any of this?

Then again, maybe the case of King Noctis and Ignis made her think about it a little more. It was painfully obvious that those two desperately wanted to talk but weren’t sure if the other wanted to. It wasn’t miscommunication—it was the complete lack of it. Something that most other people in the city either didn’t care about or didn’t have going on. She and Ravus were all but joint at the hip in the field; she was the fast attacker and he was the slow healer instead of his sister being the slow healer and him being the fast attacker. They had stuck together because he technically had been her superior and she still thought that she owed this woman she never met as much, but before long they had started genuinely enjoying each other’s company and started depending on it.

As Aranea thanked the woman for directions to where she supposed Ravus was, she wandered through the halls of his childhood home. The wing he likely was in was completely abandoned but it definitely looked like something that might have been dear to the people living here once. And he had offered her and her mercenaries half of all of this, just to ensure that they would help.

When she found him he was standing in a room that definitely belonged to a teenager once. Most of the stuff was untouched and what looked like it had been in use the most was the bookshelf. Looking at that one closer brought the horrors that befell him as a teenager to light—books on warfare, in a place that had ever been a bastion of peace.

She started teasing him a little, and he responded to it for the most part.

Then suddenly thanked her for everything and claiming that he was bad at this thing.

She had caught the slip-up as he tried to comfort her a while ago. For a moment he nearly considered confessing something then and there, then immediately covered it up. It was clumsy at worst and genuinely endearing to her even through the anger and grief that had mostly made her deaf to reason at the time. She had tried not to think about it too much. Thinking about it too much was a commodity that was reserved for dainty little teenagers in comedy romances, something that Aranea always considered boring at best and gag-inducing at worst.

They were at war, for goodness’ sake, and here she was staring at a guy rummaging through his childhood room like a romcom protagonist staring at the sportsball guy who was on the football-baseball-ballball field trying to win the big important game.

Only when he stopped her in the middle of the hallway to say something else before they returned to her mercenaries, her family, did Aranea decide that she was going to risk screwing up this friendship. As he clearly was unable to think of something now that he had her on her own, she instead grabbed him by the collar and pulled him down. Ravus was definitely stunned into silence and inaction because of that, and she pulled away slightly to crack a smile at him.

Out of all people in Lestallum he had to perhaps be one of the most idiotic ones. But he was the good kind of idiotic. Someone who had seen the depths of human moral, who had gone there himself, and still had chosen to see a nonsense plot through to its completion. That kind of idealism wasn’t something she would have expected out of the gravely silent and glaring young man on her airship, though she had seen the High Commander thing coming from a mile away. Maybe through all the sacrifice he’d found his reason for still being here, and coming here had definitely lifted a weight off his shoulders.

She still teased him, called it the worst love confession since the time the guy profusely bled to death in front of her and with her stunned into silence. Then poked fun at how bad with words he was.

He took it in stride, instead leaned in to kiss her this time.

Yep.

This was idiotic. He was an idiot. She was one as well.

But gods did it make her happy right now.


End file.
